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Friday, May 15, 2015

Autism Positivity Day 2015 Post: 7 Years after Embracing My Identity

Today is Autism Positivity Day, and, conveniently for me,
it almost coincides with the day where seven years ago I decided to fully
embrace the fact that I am an autistic man, not man with autism, but autistic,
with a Capital A.I know seven years is
not much of a period, but for me, this coincides with the time I finally got my
Bachelor’s degree, after seven years of college, fighting uphill against two
college environments that for an autistic were hard to adjust to.Yet, in that time, I also started and led
collegiate organizations on both campuses that stressed an environment where
autistics could be themselves.I also
started two autism blogs, which have now together garnered over fifteen
thousand views in over sixty countries, spoke to children at an autism camp
twice—which I had formerly attended as a teenager, the high school students of
my former school for youth with intellectual and developmental disabilities,
the Psych Club, Pursuit of Happiness Day forum, and the 2015 Spring Leadership
Conference at UCM, wrote for the Autistic Speaking Day blog, the Autistic
Self-Advocacy Network of Kansas City, the Horizon Academy (my high school)
newsletter, the UCM Muleskinner, KCTV,
the Kansas Legislature, JCCC’s Autism Beyond the Diagnosis 2008 Conference, and
Autism and Neurodiversity in the Classroom on the struggle of the autistic
community.I would also write The Friend of Autism Pledge, donate
artwork to the Mission Project Housing for people with I/DD, and make poster
presentations for Disability Awareness Week in 2013 and 2014, and Autism
Acceptance Month in 2014 at UCM. I would also graduate UCM’s intellectual
and developmental disability THRIVE program two years before I became the first,
and so far only THRIVE student to graduate with a Bachelor’s degree, although
many did go on to become regular students at UCM and other universities.The thing is that my life has changed so
radically, as have others I’ve heard, from embracing who I am, something I have
only truly done for less than a third of my life.

But
despite all this, I actually feared telling my story to just anyone.I feared I would become an idol for “inspiration
porn,” which is frequently the tone of any disabled person who rises above
societies abysmal expectations of them, or, worse, overcoming autism.At no point was I free from self-doubt that
largely seems to go unheard of with autistics like Temple Grandin and John
Elder Robison.I questioned my decisions
frequently and even blamed myself for whatever suffering came the way of my
fellow autistic UCM students.In fact,
if it were not for my meditation, spiritual life, true friends, family, and fellow
Autistic Student and Peer Organization, JCCC Autism Spectrum Support Group,
ASAN-KC, Camp Encourage, Horizon Academy members, various autistic and ally
Facebook friends, I literally do not think I would have survived the last four
years of completing the collegiate autistic advocacy experiment in
Warrensburg.At every point, I
encountered opposition from people who claimed to be true friends of autism,
and am still learning much of the backhanded nature of their acts.Many said to me that given our societies
unaccommodating nature of autism, these people did the best they could.However, all of them had in fact acted
selfishly.Over my time at UCM, I
learned four valuable lessons of how to get autistics to create a community
that truly embraces people like us, including:

1.Do not, under any circumstances, use the puzzle
piece. Yes, the puzzle piece may be very
well known, but if groups advocating for autistics care about us more than the
group, they will sacrifice their commercial success for individual’s
welfare.Any point where the name of
autism advocacy is used to gain a competitive edge over others is almost
certainly for selfish reasons.What
really annoys me these days about the autism puzzle piece is that it seems to
be a socially acceptable way of calling someone the R-word.Yes, every autistic person is unique, but I
found rainbow mosaic or kaleidoscope symbols (not with just primary colors)
also represented every autistic person’s uniqueness in a cohesive, natural
way.A kaleidoscope’s changing ways can
also represent autistic’s struggle to adapt to society.

2.ACCEPTANCE, not awareness, is a mantra for
change.When young, naïve neurotypicals
stop me in the streets asking them to support their cause of autism awareness,
I wish to ask them, “I live with autism 24/7, and it is in my sleeping
patterns, dietary habits, and even the way I move.How can I not be aware of it?”The fact that a person would automatically
assume I am not autistic leads me to wonder how much their cause is really
promoting awareness.Awareness tends to
emphasize elite neurotypicals and institutions lending their name to the cause
of autism then it does the diverse stories of autistics in our own words.It is a paternalistic relationship, enforced
by the perception that autistics are basically all children, not an empowering
one.

3.Blue lights cannot be away to welcome people you
wish to be fully accepting, self-respecting autistics, for their only true
association with autism is the logo of an autism an autism organization (Autism
Speaks) whose financial, commercial, and corporate aspects are, at best,
questionable.It would be like wearing
gray for Black History Month, as gray was the color of the Confederate
soldiers.Instead, I wear gold, whose
chemical symbol Au is the first to letters of the word “autistic”; red, the
color of a heart, which has been proposed as an alternative symbol for the
puzzle piece; taupe, the color of the Tree of Neurodiversity, also suggested as
an alternative symbol for the puzzle piece; and orange, the color of the spark
logo of the Celebrate Autism Foundation, also suggested as an alternative to
the puzzle piece; or rainbow colors, not just blue, representing the diversity
of autism throughout life, and the Autistic Self-Advocacy Networks rainbow
heptagon symbol, also suggested as an alternative for something.No prizes for guessing what.

4.Autistics must be empowered to speak for
themselves, as individuals, and as a community, not by neurotypical parents,
celebrities, school spirit faces, or institutions.While neurotypical loved ones may help, they
must not talk over, manipulate, or review for approval the voices of autistics,
because while many doing so do intend to help, let’s look at what picture this
creates of autistics: individuals, regardless of their age, who need mommy and
daddy to fight their battles.Rather
than empowering images of people you’d want for your company, social life, or
any aspect that is a key to autistic integration, autistics are devalued as
children, much the way slaves in the American South were called “boy.”The Autistic Self-Advocacy Network meanwhile,
has created resources for everything from improving autistic services to
preventing murders of children to stopping disabled discrimination in organ
transplants, and has made substantially more difference then elite individuals
who wish to speak for autistics.For the
first few years I knew I was autistic, these things—puzzle pieces, blue lights,
awareness, and helicopter parents— were all I knew of the autism world.Consequently, I did not embrace my autism,
and would not have done all this stuff for the autistic community if I hadn’t.I hope my fellow autistic individuals will be
motivated to do the same things I have done and make this a better world for
people like us.

2 comments:

and I also support this no one is to be blame but their selves the lifes of these people need support to whatever life throws at them and even though that I dont have autism I am proudly say I would be autistic adjescent to the cause of these problems and I am disabled I have down syndrome if hurt these people you hurt me as well because my roomate from my second year in UCM have autism and they artistic people who needs help and I do too.